Re: My case against <G14>
 

One could argue that "deranged strategies" are encouraged by our society too. I'm sure everyone here listened to Dean's speech very closely. The emphasis on why we do what we do. I'm sure everyone listened closely to Woodie and Dave as well - before the game was unveiled.

Just because we CAN do something doesn't mean we SHOULD. If you are choosing to do something just to "win" even if you may think or know it's not the "right" thing to do, then I guess you're missing the point entirely.

...and spare me the talk of, "but the other guy might do it and that's not fair..." because, again, this too is everyday life in our culture. The stuff we're supposedly working at changing, regardless of the adversity along the way.

If you want to actively change the culture for the better, then, in the face of all this perceived and potential "wrongdoing" and adversity you'll find a way to do the "right" thing without judging others at all - it's just wasted energy anyway.

Is all of this unfair? Sure. If I'm suggesting that we shouldn't expend energy pointing fingers of others' wrongdoings doesn't that mean I'll have to work that much harder to succeed? Yup, probably.

Listen, folks did you ever think that these type of items, the ones that nag the teams every year for the same "fairness" reasons is the REAL game we need to pay attention to? How many times do some of us need to hear our founder and national advisors talk about competing like crazy and treating each other well in the process, winning in a way that values your opponent, etc.

If we're going to be cultural change agents we need to get comfortable with the notion of working harder than we ever have before without caving into our personal desires to "win" or get what we think we "deserve." The journey is the reward - REALLY. this is a hard challenge, REALLY.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted at the time people think they have to discuss this in such painstaking detail when there's a huge problem to solve and lots of sharing to do in a very short period of time.

I admit the game if fun, but we all need to remember why the heck we're doing this. Dean, Dave, and Woodie try to hit us over the head with the important messages every year so let's make this the year we keep all of that foremost in our minds, even during robot build and game play ... please?

The 'game" exists as a test to us as designers, but more importantly as positive culture-changing people and organizations.


namaste,
rich

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Along those same lines... Lets say your robot alone, at it's best, can score 10 points for your team. Your two alliance partners in one match each score 60 points and, as an alliance, you triple the other teams score. The next match you play you're penalized, even though you contributed only a small portion to your previous alliance's amazing score.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

First of all, I'm an alumni (as noted on my profile) and sadly not yet a mentor, so I truly have nothing better to do then post here :P Anyway, I think you may have misunderstood the point of that post. I am not encouraging teams to take advantage of <G14>, or even stating that it is likely to happen. I was rather pointing out the many and varied ways that the rule ~could~ be taken advantage of. This is, in my opinion, one of many, many flaws the rule has, and not nearly the biggest one.
I'm honestly not sure I really understand your post. Are you simply trying to respond to my saying that teams could game the rule, or are you trying to say that we should stop worrying about the game and worry about the other parts of FIRST? I agree, in a way, but you have to remember that without the game, there isn't much else to FIRST. I believe that <G14> takes away a lot of the learning experience that is, IMO, one of the most important "other parts" of all. And I have still not read a real reason why the rule is there in the first place.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I asked in the other thread and i'm asking here. How do i explain this rule to students and parents? Not the rule but the reason for it? How do you explain that you might have to NOT do your best? Where in the real world do i point to for an example? What will the kids learn from this?:confused:

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I think what Rich was saying is that we can only police ourselves. If other people will do any "sandbagging" as you called it, then they will. He was just saying that all we can control is ourselves and that by doing so in a graciously professional manner, perhaps others will try to emulate us.

As far as the reason for the rule, it seems to me the same reason why we switched to a serpentine style alliance selection process. It will bring some added excitement to the games by making them more even. I was in FIRST for 1 non serpentine draft and the elimination matches did not compare to the ones we get to watch now. #1 Alliance used to win a lot more than they do now. FIRST went out on a limb back then by trying to even the field a little and IMHO, it worked out incredibly well. The people running FIRST are pretty smart, let's give them a chance to show us that a rule like this is a good thing.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

This isn't introducing any real excitement, though. It's just fake excitement, where the scores will seem close but the match will have been a blowout. Team members and non-affiliated spectators will both be able to tell when an alliance is far superior and simply not trying to win, and it won't make the match any more "exciting", it'll just make the end look like a joke.
It's a lot like NASCAR, which I used to enjoy a lot. In the last few years, though, they have gotten into the habit of throwing yellow flags (which bunch up the field) constantly and for no real reason, especially near the end of the race. The result? The results look more competitive then ever and the margin of victory is always low, and NASCAR constantly puts out races to this effect. But is the race really any more exciting? No. It's just manufactured excitement, making the final results look close when in reality the cars may have been far apart in performance. FIRST is trying to do the same thing, and it won't work. Besides, why do they need to? This game is level enough already! And what ever happened to the "successful teams inspire others" theory?

Re: My case against <G14>
 

If the rule stands as is, you're not going to see very many super cells in play this year.

There are plenty of regionals that don't typically have tons of high scoring matches. I don't think it's really a very good rule, but if it stands as is, you're going to see a lot of scoring for the other team going on as well.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I question whether lopsided scores in competitions are inherently bad or the "wrong thing". When everyone (spectators AND players) can easily recognize that one side will be overwhelmingly victorious (such as in the final quarter of a football game), then I can see teams choosing to refrain from "running up the score" as the "right thing". In an intense 2 min.15 sec. match when a final match score probably won't be as readily obvious, does the possibility of a looming penalty (for performing well the objective of the game's challenge), in a future match with other alliance members, make sense?

"Fairness" & GP are often in the eye of the beholder. Creating barriers to doing one's absolute best when accomplishing a goal bothers me. Envy and even the desire to spare other's feelings can backfire into promoting ideals unrelated to inspiration of others, personal growth & the exploration of new skills.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

So let's take this scenario a bit further, and say that every other match you have half your supercells due to the fact that you keep outscoring your opposition 2:1. If you're constantly in this situation, you obviously have a good game plan, and depending on who you're allied with you will still do very well when you're down a couple of super cells. That's where your actual robot design will be critical: it means that if you're reliant on a strategy and your human player too much, you will have to be more reliant on your robot the next match. There it is, from a pure strategy perspective.

In the elims, if you score 2:1 in match 1, then as a result they beat you in match 2, you will probably still outscore them in match 3 if super cells were the difference maker.

I personally think it's just a nuisance rule, nothing more.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

Is everyone planning to only use super cells if THEIR team has some? There is nothing I can find in the rules saying that you cannot use the super cells of another team on your alliance. Therefore, I feel as if people are either disregarding the fact that the super cells are for the entire alliance to use or do not think their alliance will be very good at sharing. Also, if your robot is really THAT good, why can't it just load dozens and dozens of moon rocks into opposing trailers every match? I understand that a strategy which relies heavily on super cells is damaged by this rule, but perhaps that's because FIRST wants teams to not rely solely on that strategy.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

After some more thought this rule is better intended for a competition where alliances are the same throughout the whole competition. The main problem lies within alliances changing, because one alliance may be great and then robot from that alliance could be paired with a pair of rookies for instance that alliance is even further disadvantaged, and this is the biggest problem I see. You are punishing teams who get paired with really good teams and I think that is completely out of line with the principles FIRST has taught us.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

I'd say that, for this game, doing you best is something other than running up the score as high as possible in a single match.

G14 doesn't punish a team for "doing their best", it punishes them for not understanding the rule.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

Re: My case against <G14>
 

The way I explained it to my new students is that FIRST wants to see a more evenly matched game, and the *intent* is to discourage defense and encourage offense. There are plenty of valid arguments here and my own personal feelings are that the rank points are enough to try and keep this in check, but FIRST makes the rules. Im sure we will see modifications coming up (ie the 0 issue, and that its based on raw score not penalized score), but again the idea here is to build a robot that can score, not a robot that battlebots the other robots... that's how I explained it at least.

The initial thing that worried me about this rule was mostly that how is a coach to know the score at all times?? What if its 62 to 30... I cant imagine that is easy to judge with a bunch of robots running around and balls that just look like giant tangles. I dont even know how refs/scorekeepers could really accurately tell (although maybe FIRST has some way to keep the real time scoring updated well).

And then my last thought in reading through this thread, sort of spurred on by the discussion of scoring for your opponents... whether its "GP" or not... how do you explain that to a spectator? (same really goes if you are scoring in the terms of getting up your rank points). If Red Alliance is supposed to score in Blue's goals, how do you explain to the 8 year old sitting in the audience why Red is suddenly scoring points FOR Blue?

Whether its for rank points or to keep super cells, I think we will see scoring for the opposing alliances this year.

Re: My case against <G14>
 

This rule also provides protection against crack shot Payload Specialists, which is in my opinion a more "fair" purpose.

David